Confronting SA’s past

by Editor · Published November 12, 2003 · Updated March 6, 2012

Pope John Paul is an astute observer of the human condition when he says that true reconciliation is impossible without wrongs first being acknowledged by their perpetrators.

The pope himself exercised this principle when he admitted aberrations of the past committed in the name of the Church, and issued a mea culpa for these during the jubilee year 2000 � against the advice of some Vatican aides.

His acknowledgement and repentance for violations committed on behalf of the Church � such as anti-Semitism, the horrors of the Inquisition, the excesses of the Crusades � has cleared much of the way for a d�tente with those who harboured historical resentment towards the Catholic Church.

More than that, the pope reminds us that an admission of past wrongs is fundamental to progress. This basic principle is exercised in the sacrament of reconciliation when penitents are called not only to admit their sins and do penance for these, but also to forgive themselves as well as asking forgiveness from those who have been wronged.

As we report this week, the pope told Church scholars that “it is necessary to�reconcile oneself with the past before beginning a process of reconciliation with other people or communities. This effort to purify one�s own memory involves � for individuals and for populations�the acknowledgment of errors actually committed and for which it is right to ask forgiveness.”

This lesson is crucial in South Africa. Almost ten years after the enfranchisement of all its citizens, there remains a lingering bitterness. For some time, feelings of acrimony have been masked by a post-apartheid euphoria.

The recent uproar over alleged racism in the rugby Springbok squad, and the varied reaction to it, suggests that issues of racial concerns are simmering below the surface.

White South Africans who think that the political liberation of the previously disenfranchised (accepted only parsimoniously by many) would automatically heal the wounds inflicted by a brutal and malevolent system are seriously mistaken. Likewise, it would be a mistake to believe that all whites are resistant to the ideal of a non-racist society. Many have embraced the post-apartheid society sincerely and fully.

However, many of those who previously benefited from apartheid have, by and large, not found a way to acknowledge fully the harm caused by that system. This was underscored by widespread (though not necessarily representative) reaction among white South Africans to the Springbok debacle, which seemed to suggest their black compatriots should relinquish their “obsession with race”.

This is not a call for white South Africans to make, however. True reconciliation will be possible only when black South Africans can recognise that the white community has confronted and fully come to terms with its own experience of (and, where applicable, complicity in) apartheid.

This difficult and painful process requires, in the words of Pope John Paul, courage (of which South Africans have plenty) and humility (a quality that sometimes seems exiguous).

The pope said: “One cannot remain a prisoner of the past.” Indeed. A decade since the death of apartheid, white South Africans need liberating from their own history. Facing up to it is the indispensable first step.